The Blackhawks played extremely well for one period, and poorly for two and a half others, in Game 2.
That mixed-bag effort proved enough to carry the Hawks through regulation time, but not enough to stop the heavily favored Golden Knights from eventually winning.
Knights forward Reilly Smith ultimately scored 7:13 into overtime, giving Vegas a 4-3 victory and a 2-0 series lead.
The blown opportunity to dig a foothold in the series instead left the Hawks muttering in past future tense for the rest of Thursday night.
“Would have been nice to see something go in there in overtime, but it’s the way it goes, I guess,” Patrick Kane said. “Would have been nice to have a better third period, too, especially after we came back to tie it up and had a lot of momentum. Would have been nice to keep that momentum.”
The Hawks’ comeback in the second period — the momentum Kane referred to — was undeniably impressive.
They made brilliant use of the long change to stretch the normally stingy Knights into playing more open, transition hockey. They out-attempted the Knights 23-20, out-chanced the Knights 14-12 and outscored the Knights 3-1 in the frame. They looked, albeit briefly, every bit an equal in the series.
“I really liked our first two periods. We showed a lot of character to battle back a couple different times,” coach Jeremy Colliton said. “It’s important not to give [Vegas] extra chances to have zone time, so when we were clean with it and able to advance it and drive it deep into the offensive zone — get a forecheck going, get zone time — we had some success.”
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But going into the third period — and, later, overtime — tied 3-3, the Hawks were not able to rediscover that same intensity.
The Knights out-attempted the Hawks 36-16, out-chanced the Hawks 21-8 and eventually outscored the Hawks 1-0 over the game’s final 27 minutes. While goaltender Corey Crawford, after shaking off another disconcerting start, did well to hold off what Kirby Dach later described as “waves” of Vegas attacks, he could not singlehandedly save the game.
“For whatever reason, it just seemed like they came out better than us in the third,” Kane said. “I don’t know if we thought it was going to be a little easier than it was.”
Colliton ran the Hawks’ depth chart through a blender prior to the game, most notably scratching Adam Boqvist in favor of fellow rookie Lucas Carlsson.
Some changes clicked; others did not. Unfortunately, Carlsson’s new pairing with Connor Murphy fell into the latter category.
They miscommunicated twice with disastrous effects, getting caught below the goal line on Paul Statsny’s first-period goal and leaving Smith wide open in the slot on the game-winner.
“We weren’t able to get the puck in and get it deep and get our ‘D’ off, so you end up with tired guys trying to defend, and we had a breakdown,” Colliton said.
In a normal series, the underdog Hawks would now return to home ice for Game 3, looking for a much-needed boost from the United Center crowd.
But it won’t be so in the Edmonton bubble format. Game 3 will take place — still at Rogers Place — on Saturday at 7 p.m., when the Hawks will need a heroic team effort to turn around the course of the series.
“The key is, how long can we stick with it?” Colliton said. “How long can we be persistent when we face adversity? We’ve faced some adversity here over the first couple games, and do we have the character to overcome it?”
